I never use to be a list-maker but somewhere along the lines I started keeping track of things I needed to do during a given day. Not because I was forgetting things regularly but when you spend most of your time in front of a screen – one task flows right into another, and it’s so easy to be interrupted, distracted or get lost in what’s next. Novels that are 3/4 read and blog posts that are 1/2 written remind me of my constant attempts to process more information in a given day than is humanly possible.
Going through directories on my laptop, I’ve noticed several folders of half written code and documents with business and project ideas that never have been fully developed. Some projects are precursors to larger projects, or ideas I’ve wanted to try out as online experiments or small businesses. They’ve never shipped. Why is that? Of course we all deal with massive time constraints in our lives but I’d also argue that at least in my case what has prevented me from shipping can be thrown into three major buckets.
Fear – This is a topic that Seth Godin covers in a lot of his books as a chief obstacle to shipping your idea. What will people think? Will my idea work? Will it sell? Is it a good idea? Will it be worth my time? Those emotions are what he calls ‘The Lizard Brain’ taking over. It’s fight or flight at its core. But failure- especially on projects that are digital in nature- seems to be the most sure path to success. Using the skills and data points from failed projects and consistently shipping new code and new ideas has been at the heart of so many digital entrepreneurs.
Failure to Understand Process – Concepting out an idea or a project is the easy part but identifying manageable steps to get there is a step I too often forget. A lot of folks say the hardest part of a project is beginning but I disagree with that. I think the hardest part is coming up with a series of achievable goals that will lead to the big payoff. It’s making a plan ‘b’ for getting through that first bottleneck that is critical to success. Tim Ferris talked a lot about this process in 4 Hour Workweek when he applied it to planning large life goals (‘dreamlining’) and suggested breaking down those large goals into incredibly small pieces that are achievable. Pieces so small that they could be accomplished on a weekly or daily basis.
The Threat of Infinity – Research has shown that to really modify a behavior and make it stick, 30 days seems to be the threshold. Using that same line of thinking, a path to success is to commit to launch date and a dead-pool date. When you’re committed to shipping – it makes shipping that much easier because you’re married to a date. Ever notice how long ‘coming soon’ pages on websites last? Forever. Commit to a ship date and launch with what you have. Add features instead of ‘coming soon’ placeholders by committing to secondary launch dates. But what about the dead-pool? This goes back to fear. What if it doesn’t work out? Set a timeframe for that too. If the project fails by that date – take it off life support instead of letting the project slowly waste away. This in itself can have a massive amount of value if the exit is done correctly. Open your code or idea to remixers or other developers who might want to modify or take the project in a different direction. Encourage input from your users on how to make the next iteration better, or allow community to take ownership. In short, make it easy for others to build upon your work and ship their own ideas.
That being said, I’m hoping to share some project ideas on the blog soon and more importantly, work through these steps to get them shipped. After all, I really think one of the most important questions we should all have an answer to is – “What are you working on?”
So tell me – how do you prioritize to get projects shipped? I could use the advise. And, more importantly – what are you working on? Fire away in the comments.
better ideas lead to higher share ratio, regardless of size
Seth Godin had a great post about how a focus on good ideas will always have more value than a focus on getting more fans or followers. Reconciling size versus engagement is something that I know a lot of brands and individuals struggle with online. We all want to be important. We all want to have a million followers. I struggle with this as well. Would I rather have 10 passionate people who digest everything and spread the word than a thousand people who are passive observers? From a long term strategy, yes, but it sure would feel good (at least for a moment) to have a follower / fan count of several thousand.
Without trying to reiterate what Seth says, I’d really like to call your attention to the graph that I grabbed from his post and also direct you there to read his theory (with a little data to back it up) on followers vs. ideas. It’s one of the better posts he’s drafted recently and I think everyone should take a look. Read Seth’s post by clicking here…
Some of the bigger guns in Social Media have taken a pit stop recently into the more traditional scene and published books on their areas of expertise. Chris Brogan and Julian Smith put out Trust Agents recently (my review of the book coming soon) and Gary Vaynerchuk just released Crush It (currently reading).
Both have gotten a bit of criticism for jumping into a traditional method of disseminating information (the hardcover book) when their ‘business’ is talking about online communities, business, and social media. Furthermore, both Chris and Gary give away an enormous amount of kick-ass information, action items, and insight through both their blogs, and in Chris’ case, much of the basic principles served as the foundation for Trust Agents.
So why did I buy (and why will I continue to buy) their books when I can get a lot of the same content for free, online? First it’s about saying Thank You. It’s the same reason I became a member of my local NPR station. They give away the content, but I find value in it, so I choose to support it. For another reason that made sense to me, I have to bring in Seth Godin. Below check the embed of a talk that he gave to book publishers about the different methods he uses to publish his books and how they were received.
The short of it is that guys like Seth, Gary, and Chris are a bit different since they’re not in the book business. They’re in the building relationship business, the speaking business and the building community business. They give talks, put out great info for free on their blogs, and create experiences. The books are souvenirs. Now, of course for people who aren’t familiar with their online work, the books are a gateway, a CD sampler, an appetizer. But for the rest of us….souvenirs.
It’s part of what Gary V. has called the “Thank You Economy.” and it’s something that I also think is here to stay. So, thanks Chris and Gary for the great content, the videos, the blogs, the interaction and the community.
One of the main reasons I wanted to hit up The 99% was to see Seth Godin speak in person.Seth is the author of many great books on marketing including Purple Cow and most recently – Tribes.He also has one of the most successful blogs on the web and I’d highly recommend that you subscribe to it or at least give it a visit.He’s a source of constant inspiration.
What Seth wanted to talk about was our Lizard Brain and how that makes us reluctant to ship.He argued that we are all creative – we all have big ideas. That’s not the problem.The problem is that we need to execute.We need to SHIP.
It happens to all of us right?We’re working on a project for weeks or months with a go live date or a deadline that we have to hit.And the closer we get to release (our Ship Date) – somehow magically more people want to have influence in the final product.More people (including ourselves) want to change the product.And the closer we get to the ship date, it seems like the more we want to make last minute revisions and tweaks.We call this ‘Thrashing.’
So why do we thrash, particularly at the last minute?Seth says its our Lizard Brains speaking up.See, in evolutionary terms we all have a lizard brain to a certain extent.It’s the cortexes that evolved around the lizard brain that makes us reason, create, etc.But the lizard brain – that’s the part that is reactionary.It doesn’t have the ability to reason because its preoccupied with threats (animals are pretty much always hungry, scared, horny, or reacting to something).
The threat is that as we get closer to the Ship Date, we start to get scared.Other people want to put in there .02 before the final product goes out.Afterall, we want to please as many people as we can…We want it to be a hit.But that rarely happens with we thrash at the last minute.It s what prevents us from shipping on time, under budget, and with the best quality we can muster.
The answer?Two things.First, Thrash Early.In the planning stages of the ideas, make some ground rules that everyone from the top down has to follow.Everyone.For instance, if you don’t show up to the thrashing meetings to voice your ideas – you don’t count.If you don’t have the confidence to speak up early on, to make your opinions heard – you don’t count.Because its by thrashing early that we’re able to set goals, set priorities, and bring the project to its full potential.
The 2nd lesson is to know when to ship.Often late in the process, more and more ideas and hands get put into the pot and the cause of that is cost overruns, and delays.Don’t.Keep to the plan.When do we ship?We ship when we run out of time, or run out of budget. Period.
In the end, the products and ideas that are rewarded are the ones that are tangible.They are the ones that are executed.They arethe ideas that have shipped.
I’ve been reading a lot about how you can use social media to help manage your brand and was on a great conference call with Chris Brogan and Awareness Networks. Actually, if you want to check out the slides from the presentation hit them up here.
A lot of the metrics I see and the stories I hear talk about how larger corporations are jumping into the social media sphere (perfect example for better or worse was Skittlegate, or JetBlue’s embracing of Twitter) to interact with their customers, solve problems and get feedback. But I haven’t heard a ton about how small businesses are utilizing SM besides having a MySpace page. I do see tons of entrepreneurs really engaging in the medium but so far I haven’t seen a ton of small businesses (at least in my geographic region) get involved (I KNOW there are some of you out there though).
But I would argue that small businesses have just as much to gain by interacting and monitoring SM conversations, as large corporations do. The thing that rocks about Twitter, Blogs, etc, is the accessibility, speed, and most importantly AUTHENTICITY that they help to foster between a brand and customers. That being said, small business owners have just as much to gain in SM because people are always craving accessability and authenticiy – which is something that most small businesses should be built on. Its a natural fit.
I have to ask, who is in charge of the online presence for most major corporations? Is it an agency? An existing front line employee, someone from marketing, or the CEO (and I know this will vary widely)? And is it always someone on the inside?
Todd Defen and Seth Godin had great posts on how Social Media is less like advertising and more like PR and the difference between PR and Publicity. So if you buy that argument (which I do, to a point – I think Customer Service is a huge part of it), does that mean that whoever handles a company’s PR should also handle their SM presence? This is a bone of contention. I posed this question and got a response from @Chris Brogan saying that he’s not a fan at all of Ghost Tweeting (Sending out Tweets for someone else) because it decreases transparency.
And I have to say that I’m on the fence with this one. Is there a market to monitor small businesses online, by helping to run their Twitter Accounts and interacting with customers for someone on an agency level? I would think so. And if that ‘online brand manager’ keeps the client abreast of the feedback coming in (both positive and negative), advising them on how to help and engage customers, are they doing a disservice to the community or serving it? Does that take away from the whole purpose of using SM tools as a method of interacting authentically with others?
Or do most SM ‘experts’ take more of an educational role, getting clients used to using these tools on their own, and hoping for the best. It certainly makes it authentic. But I wonder if a bad online presence is better than NO online presence.
I’m really torn on this and would love to have some feedback from you all.
I never use to be a list-maker but somewhere along the lines I started keeping track of things I needed to do during a given day. Not because I was forgetting things regularly but when you spend most of your time in front of a screen – one task flows right into another, and it’s so easy to be interrupted, distracted or get lost in what’s next. Novels that are 3/4 read and blog posts that are 1/2 written remind me of my constant attempts to process more information in a given day than is humanly possible.
